For some of you, this may be the first time you've heard of a Birthmother's Day - but it is true, the day before Mother's Day is dedicated to Birthmoms as Birthmother's Day. Birthmother's Day falls this year on Saturday, May 8th, 2004.

From the adoption@about.com site: "Mary Jean Wolch-Marsh first conceived the idea as a result of her own adoption experience. She knew she was a mother, but didn't feel recognized as such, either by those around her or by her daughter's parents. Remembering the feelings she'd experienced at her daughter's birth - feelings of triumph and euphoria; she used them to help in her own healing. May Birth Mother's Day bring acknowledgement and recognition to every birth mother who ever loved a child lost to adoption. May it honor and celebrate every mother who became childless after birthing a child, and was forgotten on Mother's Day. For birthmothers, the observance can be a time to affirm joys and acknowledge the sorrow, grief, and pain that are a part of many experiences. It can also be a time to break the silence and release years of anguish, worry, shame, or guilt. The purpose of Marsh's Birth Mother's Day ceremony is insight, affirmation, growth, and wisdom."

From Brenda Romanchik's insightful article on Birthmother's Day:

"Birth Mother's Day was created in 1990 by a group of Seattle Washington birth mothers who met each other at a birth parent support group. It grew out of the shared recognition that Mother's Day is one of the most painful days of the year- second only to the birthday of our missing children. Yet birth mothers have been shut out of the traditional celebration and remembrances of the holiday. Most birth mothers are neither named nor recognized among the mothers in our midst. For most birth mothers there are no cards or flowers. Society treats the motherhood of the birth mother as a momentary event that fades quickly from the collective memory. It often seems we are even forgotten by those who received the gift and the privilege of parenthood through the birth mother's loss."